


Blender In A Lightning Storm

by buttercups3, maywitch



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Fanmix, Graphics, M/M, Miloe through the years, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 8,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/maywitch/pseuds/maywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This multimedia salute to Miloe includes original graphics, fanfics, and a fanmix. Graphics and fics sample song lyrics and various phases of Miloe’s relationship from their first encounter as young boys to the series finale. Please see individual chapters for ratings, warnings, and spoiler alerts. (Rated G-E.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blender in a Lightning Storm

**Author's Note:**

> All graphics were created by maywitch; all stories were written by buttercups3. We selected the fanmix together. Chapter one is the album front and back cover to provide an overview. Chapter two begins the songs, graphics, and fics. In general the fics are either from Miles’ or Bass’ p.o.v. as marked with one exception. The songs are linked to Spotify, but if you do not have an account, you can click on the 8tracks link in chapter one and listen straight through. Enjoy!

  

 

Listen to the entire album at [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/maywitch/blender-in-a-lightning-storm).


	2. Cats and Dogs

**FRIEND**  
 **Rated: G**

_Miles_

With a knot the size of a fist in my throat I sit, eyes tracing the carved M+S on my desktop left behind by some third grader of the past. I don’t want to watch the other kids file in. I hate the first day of school, and this one will be even worse because Mom was too sick to make our lunches. Pop gave us cash instead. Now I have to wait in line for lunch, and I’ve never done that before. I nearly choke. A bead of sweat slides down my neck and stains my collar.

Suddenly, I can’t keep my eyes on my desk anymore, because the bright pink belly of Mrs. Pewter is in front of me, demanding my attention. Her fingernails are exactly the same blinding shade of pink. I look up sulkily.

“Miles Matheson, I’d like you to meet Sebastian Monroe. He’s new in town, and he’ll be your desk partner. I know you’ll make him feel at home.” She squints at me like she doesn’t know that at all - like the possibility of me making anyone feel comfortable is the craziest thing she’s ever said.

I sort of grunt an answer, but then I stop caring about Mrs. Pewter and her excessive pinkness, because the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen are peering at me from beneath a pile of golden curls. This kid doesn’t look like anyone in town.

He holds out his hand to me and announces, “I’m Bass.”

Instead of the usual flash of panic when I shake hands with someone new, his grin actually makes me smile a little. And I don’t smile much.

Since I’m not talking, he continues, “Miles?” I nod. “My parents and I just moved from Illinois. We have a dog. Her name is Sadie. Do you have a dog?”

I shake my head and smile again. He flashes white teeth back at me.

“You don’t say much, do you?” he confirms, but he doesn’t sound annoyed, just observant.

I shrug. “I don’t have a dog, but I have a big brother. His name’s Ben.” I clear my throat, which is a little scratchy from being out of practice. “You live across the street from us. I saw you move in.”

“Really? Awesome! You can come over and play Nintendo whenever you want!”

For the third time in a minute, I smile. And it only gets better from there. At recess we pretend we’re soldiers on a really important mission and belly-crawl through the ivy, sticks mounted on our shoulders as rifles. Then at lunch, Bass must notice I’m nervous about the lunch line because he offers me half his ham sandwich and a chocolate-chip cookie instead. I’ve never really had a friend before - not like this. I’m so happy I’m nearly breathless by the time I get home, running in ahead of Ben to tell Mom.

“Mom, mom!” the words come tumbling out before I realize I shouldn’t have shouted. She’s lying on the couch with a cloth over her eyes and a small pan at her side for her spit. She has stomach cancer. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby. What is it? You had a good first day of school?” She holds out a cool hand to squeeze my hot one. Hot and dirty. I feel bad. It might make her sick. I’ve forgotten to take my shoes off at the door too.

“I made a friend: Bass!” The word friend doesn’t seem to cover it. It’s like I didn’t even realize I was lonely until now when I don’t have to be lonely anymore. “He likes Batman and Robin! I’m going to arrange my comic books so we can look through them tomorrow… Is it okay if he comes over?”

She nods happily and even looks a little less pale as I dash away upstairs, skipping every other step.


	3. John Michael

**HUMP**   
**Rated: E**

_Miles_

“Brrrrraaaaaappppp,” Bass rips a belch that rattles the headboard behind me.

He’s sitting cross-legged at the end of his bed with a trig book open in his lap, while I’m lazing on his pillow, my legs folded up to avoid kicking him. I honestly can’t even fathom what trigonometry is. If you paid me a million dollars I wouldn’t be able to do whatever Bass is doing over there. That’s why I’m still in algebra.

“Smells like Cheetos,” I comment blandly, trying to find a way to stretch out my impending Charley horse without upsetting his book, but his twin bed is so fucking small I nearly dislodge it anyway.

“Watch it, turd pile, or I will brain you with it. Better yet, I’ll make you solve this triangle,” Bass narrates with a sparkle in his blue eyes.

I roll mine back at him and burp, not quite as impressively as he did, which leaves me a little disappointed. Also mine tastes like the shit spaghetti I made me and Pop for dinner instead of the no-doubt delicious macaroni and cheese Gail bestowed upon 127 Willow Lane.

I must be pulling a face because Bass amends, “Don’t worry, bud. I’d never make you do math. I’m not _that_ mean.”

Now I kick his math book out of his hands on purpose with a dirty-socked foot, my big toe protruding. He scowls at me and traps my foot like it’s a prize when it probably smells like a pig’s ass.

“I can’t believe Pop Matheson is letting you stay over on a school night,” he changes the subject, still cradling my foot.

I shake my head and draw my hands under my vaguely sweaty hair. “He’s got a girl.”

“Ew,” Bass laughs, and we pinch our faces in disgust.

“Yeah, he’s all weird about it. Like he only invites her over after I leave. He met her at the Walmart Supercenter. Because we didn’t already scream white trash...” I roll my eyes again, but part of me is a little proud of Pop. Our house has been pretty lonely since Ben went to college, and well, it’s been seven years since Mom died.

There’s a sharp rap at the door and a respectful pause. “Boys?” It’s Gail. I quickly withdraw my foot from Bass’ lap as heat creeps up my neck. It’s only then I realize that Bass holding my foot was probably precursor to some of the stuff we’ve been doing lately: fooling around with increasingly intensity. I’m embarrassed about it - about how often I think about it.

I shift the front of my jeans, attracting a smirk from Bass, when he answers his mother, “C’min.”

Gail’s springy curls fill the crack she opens in the door, her bright, blue eyes briefly scrutinizing us. “You boys finish your homework? Sebastian, you’ve got that math test tomorrow. Did you study?”

He waves her off, “Yeah. I got this, Ma.” He flashes his white teeth at her, and I’m not surprised it works on her. It works on me.

She grins back. “Okay then. Bed!”

We grumble agreement before she withdraws, blowing us each a kiss. Sometimes I wonder if Bass realizes how good he has it. His parents are totally cool.

His eyes have wandered back to my bulge. “Man, you’ve gotta put that away when my mom’s around. You’ll scandalize her.” He shoves his foot against my boner hard enough that it throbs. Fuck, I like it so much when Bass touches me, I don’t really want to do anything else these days but lie around letting him put his hands on me… or in this case, his foot. Let’s not even get started on how many times I’ve fantasized about guiding my cock between his lips today alone.

I grab his ankle and force him harder into me so that his heel squishes my tightened balls.

“Horny bastard,” Bass appreciates, flashing all his teeth again. A beautiful sight.

Maybe he sees my pupils dilate or notices me licking my lips. Whatever it is Bass silently holds up a finger, the signal to wait, and gets up to lean a chair under the handle of his door. That’s the one bad thing about his room: no lock. Though we both get off a little on the danger of possibly getting caught.

By the time he makes it back over to me, I’m tearing off my clothes, and then my hands on are him unzipping, yanking, until we’re both naked, sweaty, and panting. We’re on our sides, burying our hands in each other’s hair and kissing tongue to tongue, but it’s not enough. I shove him over and pin him underneath my weight, licking deeper into his mouth and now thrusting against his scalding hard-on with my own. Bass has the good sense to reach for the lube he keeps in his nightstand and dump some between us, the cool slip instantly getting us more worked up. Oh Jesus. I want him so badly, I’m actually out of my mind with lust. I need a tight space to fuck into, so I cram my dick in between his strong thighs.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bass starts babbling, because I’m sliding along that sensitive patch beneath his nuts.

“Tighter,” I grunt, and he compresses hard on my dick. I could pop with pleasure.

I fist the roots of his golden curls and thrust my tongue against his. My other hand slips between my stomach and his eager cock to help him along, rough calluses against slicked, baby-soft skin.

Abruptly it’s over for me between his thighs, my stomach straining, balls lifting, and then spasms I can’t control. For a moment I’m so euphoric I really don’t care about anything. He bucks frantically against my hand, and then his ass clenches. I realize with immense satisfaction that Bass is about to come, and I need to taste his salty bitterness, smeared over my tongue and lips. With a quick maneuver I get my lips over his tip just in time, sucking him inward: his characteristic lemon-spice plus a little lube and then seed. I can’t swallow all of it, so I let the rest dribble out over my lips and chin.

Bass’ moaning turns to chuckling, as he cups my cheeks with both hands, telling me I’m “dirty,” and then draws me back up to resume ravenously kissing, no matter that he’s lapping up his own seed.

Damn. I may have just come, but I feel like I could do this all night, all day. Goals in life? Fucking Bass, making out, then fucking some more. That’d look good on a college application. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was never like this with Emma. The all-consuming desire, the need. I’ve got it so bad. The things I want, Jesus. I want to be inside him; I want him inside _me_. I want to lick his perfect asshole. Who wants to do a thing like that?

I’m so terrified of the word crystallizing from my post-orgasmic haze that I choke on Bass’ tongue. _Gay_. I push it aside and decide instead that I’m just your garden-variety pervert.


	4. The General Specific

**NAME**   
**Rated: M**

_Bass_

We haven’t slept in 30 hours, so we’re sacking out in trios to catch a few winks. Only difference from what we’ve been doing for the last six hours - lying belly-down against a berm marveling at our artillery support’s cool-as-shit pyrotechnics - is we turn over.

“My kevlar smells like piss,” I comment, as I pull it off. My curls feel grateful to be free of their oven. At least it’s cool now. That’s the one good thing about the desert: cool at night.

Miles barely cracks an eye under an arched brow to answer wearily, “If you plan on talkin’ go sack out over by Crib. Cutting into my allotted two hours.”

Practical, if snippy. That’s my Miles. Garcia starts snoring obscenely to his left. Miles grimaces and shifts over to face me; reflexively I do the same. We’ve felt so fucking exposed all day until fire support got here that I didn’t realize how much I craved the comfort of Miles' face, dirt-encrusted as it is.

He appears asleep, but then he reaches down to unzip his fly. At first I think he’s going to take a piss right here, and I almost object but then realize… oh. I mean, we all need a jack from time to time, and the privacy we scrounge out here is almost nil. But Miles is usually as secretive about it as you can get, so I’m surprised he’s doing it wedged in between me and Garcia.

I’m not exactly sure where Miles and I stand, though he has been dropping hints that he’s “over” Emma and interested in me again. But I _am_ sure how I feel about him. Being in combat has left no doubt. I love him… despite the shitty way he leads me on before cowardly retreating into heterosexuality. Hell, I swing straighter than he does. His homophobia, pure self-flagellation, hurts us both.

I watch him, his dark eyelashes squeezed together, lips pinched in pleasure. He jerks it fast and hard, and I can’t see nearly as much of his cock as I wish, his giant hand, pants, and the Iraqi darkness (only a tiny sliver of moon tonight) obscuring the lovely spectacle of Miles getting off. His shiny pink tip does keep peeking out above his brutal grasp. Finally, he seizes up and starts squirting. He tries to put it all in the sand, but pearly white flecks his thick fingers. Fuck me, it’s hot. I nearly groan aloud but catch myself.

I scan his face; he’s looking at me, lips turned up in a small smile. He shuts his eyes again in what appears to be rapture, and the lips distinctly but silently shape the word:

 _Bass_.

I swallow my pleasure. That jack was for me. Better yet: about me. This is the closest we may be able to come to sex in the desert, but for the moment, having physical proof that Miles wants me again? It's enough.


	5. Angels

**BREATHE**   
**Rated: E**

_Bass_

“Bass,” he whispers, strained, ragged. Close then. I peek at him from where I’m buried beneath the sheets, his cock between my lips and two of my fingers lodged within him where I’ve recently vacated. I know he dreads the emptiness and vulnerability after I’ve finished and pulled out, so I’m keeping him as full as possible at least until he comes too.

Jesus, he’s sexy, one hand clutching his raven hair at the roots and the other balled at his side anticipating his orgasm. Abruptly he spills into my mouth, warm and salty, dribbling down my chin. His moans somehow get my bronchial tubes all tangled up on each other; I can’t breathe, and it’s not about the cock slipping from my lips on its own seed. God, Miles. I shouldn’t love you this much. It actually hurts.

Gasping, I hazard another glance at him to decide if he’s okay with me retracting my fingers. It occurs to me how fragile we both can be about each other. His mouth has fallen open, and he’s spread his large hand over his face as if to hide his ecstasy.

“Miles?” my voice sounds abnormally high and scratchy. He minutely nods, so I leave him at last, sliding up the fur and lean muscles of his stomach and chest, catching briefly in the cold metal of his necklace, and then settling under his chin. My cheek rises and falls with his chest as he catches his breath.

Suddenly the long, wiry arms enclose around me and squeeze hard like he’s just realized how close I am. I crane my lips down to contact some part of his skin and end up kissing his wrist.

I’m distracted swallowing the bit of Miles left on my tongue, my mind relaxing toward sleep, when he catches me entirely off guard by speaking. He whispers it so shyly at first I’m convinced I’ve imagined it:

“I love you, Bass.”

My heart stops, and before I can think I’ve asked, “What?” because I honestly can’t believe my ears.

He’s frozen stiff and shit, I’ve scared him, haven’t I? I push against his arms to ease them so I can lean on his chest and look at his face. I need to watch him say it, if it’s true. If this is really happening to me.

His eyes have been squeezed shut, but he opens them now to look at me with perfect sincerity. “I love you,” he confirms without the waver this time.

I must look utterly shocked - I’m vaguely aware of my mouth hanging open - because he pulls my face in with both hands and says, “Kiss me, you idiot,” and I do. I’ve waited for this moment for so long, and I’m still not entirely convinced it’s real. But my lips against his at least suggest I’m not asleep.

When we get breathless, our fingers buried in each other’s hair, I pull back a fraction of an inch to whisper into his mouth, “Say it again.” I don’t mean to be needy, but they are the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. I could never get used to them - how they flood my body with warmth all the way to my toes.

He looks a little huffy this time, dark eyes rolling, but he says it anyway, hot whiskey breath in my mouth. “I love you, Sebastian Monroe.”

I half moan and plunk my head on the pillow beside him. That makes him chuckle. I’ve closed my eyes again until I feel his enormous hand spread on my cheek.

“You’re not going to say it too?” he asks, sounding almost hurt.

Now I have to laugh a little. “Miles, I’ve said it a million times to you. But of course, I love you, too.”

God, the man looks pleased.


	6. Smother

**SORROW**  
 **Rated: E**  
 **Warning: triggers for torture and family death**

_Bass_

“Bass, for fuck’s sake,” he snarls and halts so abruptly I step on his heel. Yes, I was following that close - close enough to sniff the chemical flame-retardant off his crisp fatigues.

I know what he’s going to say: I’m a goddamned duckling, shadowing him every moment we’re not out training boots in the sticky Parris Island heat. In the name of sanity, he needs space. But what he _actually_ says is worse.

He turns to me, black eyes flashing, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple even now at 21:00. It’s still nearly 85 degrees, humidity like a womb. “Someone’ll figure it out.”

Figure _us_ out, he means - that we’re together. I open my mouth to object, when he impatiently nods at the door to the barracks, signaling I should hold my tongue till we’re in our room if I plan to argue.

So I follow him, an arm’s length between us this time, to our shared room with the shoddy twin beds and the particleboard walls. He plops on the edge of his mattress, and I can’t help but notice it doesn’t sink under his heft like beds used to. He’s hasn’t put back on much of the weight he lost during his internment in Afghanistan, not even after nearly two months of Rachel’s cooking as he recovered in Chicago. Watching me for a moment, he shrugs and starts unlacing and pulling off his boots like he thinks our conversation is over.

But there’s a weight on my chest, choking off my air passage, and even across the room feels too far away from him. He’s been back just two fucking weeks. I’ve only been back from Afghanistan for three. (I waved my leave - no one to go home to. Miles was coming here.) Each night since we were reunited, I’ve insisted on sleeping curled around him in his tiny bed. He’s even made love to me most nights, but something feels hollow in it. I think I’ll go insane if we have to suffer another night as strangers.

“Miles, let me make love to you tonight,” tumbles out of my mouth. Aw fuck. As if he weren’t already irked by my clinginess.

He minutely flinches and shushes me. The walls are very thin. But it hurts being silenced all the same.

“If we can’t talk in here, then where _can_ we talk?” I whisper, sounding desperate even to myself.

Without looking at me, Miles methodically removes and actually folds his blouse, like aliens have abducted the real Miles and replaced him with this domestic version. I decide he’s just giving himself busywork to avoid my question, but he finally does answer, dragging up his melancholy eyes to meet mine.

“What do you want to talk about, Bass?” He sounds weary as hell - is probably dreading me asking the same question everyone has been asking since my unit scraped him off the floor of that Taliban cell: _What did they do to you?_

I’m frustrated and angry with myself, because I don’t _want_ to talk, would never think of forcing him to relive his trauma. I want to wrap my arms around him from behind and slide into the impossibly tight slickness of him. I want to know we’re whole again. I know how much Miles craves that, how he can never ask because he’s ashamed, how he’ll sometimes clamp his hand over his mouth so I can’t hear him whimper in his need and sorrow.

I eye the space between us to decide if I can traverse it, but he looks so damn forbidding. All of a sudden, I lose control of my emotions and just start weeping. Fuck it, I hate myself for this. But it’s been happening ever since I lost my family, random bursts of hysterics. In my shame - Christ, can’t I let Miles hurt for one minute? do I have to make this about me? - I roll over onto my pillow and saturate it with tears.

I cry long and hard. I have no idea if Miles watches me or what, but every horrible thought I’ve had in the past year floods my brain. My parents and sisters as nothing but skeletons in boxes. Miles swallowed up by the impenetrable darkness of desert for nearly three weeks on _my_ tour; I made us go to Afghanistan. Then afterwards, Miles lying facedown on a hospital cot “because of his stitches,” a thoughtless corpsman commented.

The bed bows beside me, and his rough fingers tug at my blouse. Embarrassed by my spectacle, I pull back and help him undress us until we’re both naked. He tugs a sheet over us even though it’s a million degrees like we’re still a secret even to each other. I’m so tears-blind, I clumsily cup his chin, nearly missing, and draw him forward almost to my lips.

I whisper, “Do you not want that anymore? It’s okay if you don’t.” It would be terribly disappointing to never again be inside him, but whatever Miles needs. I would do anything for this man. I wipe my nose with the back of my wrist, and his eyes follow my hand as it plunks back on the mattress.

In other words, he can’t look at me when he admits, lips trembling, “I want it.”

We end up with him on his back, his jagged hips hitched up by a pillow, and my forehead suctioned onto his by sweat. He’s been kind enough to pretend my tears haven’t been pouring all over his face and chest, so I don’t say anything when his eyes start leaking, too.

It might be my imagination, because believe me, I’ve imagined the worst, but he feels tighter, rougher inside. I’m extremely careful with him, barely sliding up and down the narrow passage, almost forgetting to blink I’m concentrating so hard on his eyelashes, stuck together with wet. Beautiful and simple as Miles is in these moments, he comes just from his hardness compressed between us and me buried within. He sob-bites his lip, his enormous hands squeezing my biceps.

“It’s okay,” I reassure him, one hand planted in the pillow and the other stroking my knuckles across his cheek. I’m calm again.

When his body unclenches from its tremendous tremor I come too, slow and smooth, completely enveloped by the man I love and nearly lost. I rest in him, my lips against his always-prickly cheek.

His voice rumbles from his throat, “Thanks.”

I’m not exactly sure what I’m being thanked for, but the way he’s holding me suggests that it’s for more than my contribution to the rescue mission (if we can even call it that after what happened to him). Maybe it’s just thanks for knowing what he needed in this moment to carry on.


	7. Tales of a Scorched Earth

**ASPHALT**   
**Rated: T**   
**Warning: family death**   
**Spoilers: 2.06**

_Bass_

Cracked cement, cerulean sky, the scrutiny of black irises, ancient to me. My world is spinning, earth to heaven and back to Miles. It’s all noise inside my head. With one sweaty cheek pressed into his denim lap, his fingers sprawling into my curls, I might have at one time been happy just like this. But as usual we got out of sync and I moved (not quite) on to Shelly and more arrogantly… a baby girl. But I only held her dead. She was always only dead.

The world caught on fire then, and it wasn’t just me: everyone went batshit in the Black, like they had had enough of feigning human. Teeth-bared savagery is all that’s left. Just this morning we saw three children strung up in a tree, their eyes eaten out, only the fucking eyes. Like, who is hungry just for _eyes_?

We’ve got men with us from the refugee camp. Men who want our protection, who say they’ll follow where we lead. You can tell Miles has been mulling it over in his silent way for days. So I’m not surprised in the least when his voice cuts through the blaring static of my brain, steady as Sergeant Matheson rallying grunts in the heat of Iraqi noon.

“Bass, let’s take back our country, wipe the area clean of these evil fuckers, and give people something to believe in again.”

It sounds… epic. Worth waking up for. So I do. And then I notice it: a single golden bloom edging up through the steely gray of basketball court.

“Okay. Where do we start?”

A lanky tower of Jeremy blots out the sun above us, as he drawls, “Philadelphia’s ten miles that way. You boys wanna see my hometown?”

I feel the shrug through Miles’ body perfectly synchronized with mine.


	8. Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone

 

**SWEAT**   
**Rated: E**

_Miles_

Sheets of rain cascade down the windows of Bass’ office to our right. It’s so viscous it looks freshly milked from an udder. To think at one time I didn’t know what it was to drink straight from the cow. There are some good things the Blackout has given us. Sometimes I forget that locked in this nightmare the Republic has become.

You wouldn’t know Bass and I are so terribly at odds to see us standing here in our wrenched-open uniforms, mouth fucking with the intensity of an artillery barrage, both our dicks clasped in one of my oversized fists strained white.

We’re being unnecessarily rough with each other’s tongues, and I’m not all that surprised when Bass shoves two of his fingers into my mouth to wet them. My pants are yanked down just enough that when he slides his fingers down between my buttcheeks he has an unobstructed path to my entrance. I wince and grunt when he twists both fingers into me at once and fucks me hard on them.

My mouth falls open; my kissing turns to moaning. My hand on our cocks freezes to vice-grip. When I open my eyes I see undeniable satisfaction on his face, and even though he’s fingering me just the way I like, I get inexplicably annoyed at him for having this power over me. It galls me that after all these years and everything that’s happened between us, I still get so desperate the second he’s inside of me.

 _Fuck_ , he penetrates all the way to prostate with long, lean fingers, and I make a whorish little whimpering sound, ducking my forehead into his. I will myself to regain control. Well, two can play at this game. I lick one of my own fingers and snake it around to his ass, while jerking us again with my other hand. We really need lube for this. Bass must agree because just as I breach his pucker, he’s leaning forward to spit onto our cocks. He moans, and I fight not to echo him. So hot and slick inside. I thrust my enormous finger in and out and almost forget why we’re mad at each other. Almost.

It’s getting hard for us to stand, and somehow we’re both trying to use the other’s forehead for support. I’m tossing us quickly enough that my arm cramps, and Bass is fingering me so aggressively I keep groaning instead of kissing him back. We sweat freely onto each other and into our disheveled uniforms.

But nothing happens. Our bodies are being stubborn, turned to stone. I get so frustrated I drop our erections and turn my back on him. I don’t know if I’m giving up or just being dramatic. I’m angry and sad: the only two emotions I seem to have cultivated over the years. I want him to fuck me on his silky, curved cock and feel him come buried at my core, but I don’t want to admit it.

I pull up my trousers and zip them with finality.

You see, that’s where I went wrong: making myself nothing but a giant ass-pussy begging to be fucked. The Taliban saw that weakness in me and exploited it in Afghanistan. Good Marines don’t have vulnerable spots. They don’t get captured.

I left Bass no choice but to lead to the Republic, and he’s shit at it. I let us down and lost him to the morass. Now it’s up to me to stop him. This time no excuses.


	9. Piano Sonata No. 2 Andante sostenuto

**GUN**   
**Rated: T**

Outside rages the disorder and violence of usurpation, but in his bed the dictator sleeps as peaceful and angelic as a child. His dreams are pleasant for once: resting his golden head in his ex-lover’s lap in an immense field of clover. When he opens his eyes he’s startled then elated to see the man in the flesh: Miles. Bass opens his mouth to ask him, _Are you okay?_ because it’s been weeks since they’ve seen each other, and before that months (maybe years now) of bitter discord. And then the metal winks in the moonlight. A gun. Miles is here to kill him.

There is only one person Bass loves left in the world, one man he would do anything for, and that man wants him dead.

Bass thinks: _Just do it then_. And Miles thinks: _I can’t do this, brother_.

To deny, betray, and hate Bass is the same exercise in futility Miles has always engaged in with himself.

Their atoms mixed up long ago. So the world will hang until they meet again. 


	10. Miss You

 

**HANDS**   
**Rated: M**

_Miles_

I’ve become a creature of the night. When the sun starts to peek through the crack in my window boards, that’s when I know it’s time for bed. The Grand is closed, all the bloodsuckers gone - the men I make my livelihood from. I hate them probably because they remind me of me: drunk, alone, and waiting to die but too lazy to hasten my retreat.

Picking at a scab on my finger from some glass I broke on the bar, I’m satisfied when it starts to ooze red. The metallic smell of my body opened up. I thud my head back against the velvet cushion of my chair and take out my cock as is my ritual. I can’t go to sleep without this - without thinking of him.

It brings me zero pleasure, but I do it anyway… as penance? Running my fingers up the smooth flesh, I harden obediently. Guess it’s the part of me that never wanted to leave him now matter how bad he got. I want his slender fingers, not my ugly, thick ones, tracing my veins. A droplet of the blood from my finger trickles down my shaft and disappears into the dark hair below. I smear it in, the only lube I bother with. I force myself to come dry, gasping, profoundly sad.

“Sorry, Bass,” I whisper into my chamber, cavernous and empty as a church. I fall asleep sitting there, wilted, red-smudged cock in hand, a beam of morning light striped across my chest.

* * *

_Bass_

I imagine this looks insane: I’m sprawled facedown on Miles’ pillow, twisted up in his old sheets, jerking myself, writhing, sobbing. I won’t let the maid change the bedclothes, convinced that I can still smell him there. River, fire smoke, whiskey. Those are his post-Blackout smells. They are the essence of him, no fucking remnant of civilization getting in his way with Old Spice or soap. Miles is the elements of nature, man’s dominance over it, and his own alcoholism. Nothing more or less.

I’m kidding myself. The sheets just smell like my own dried jizz from night after night of this. One hundred percent pathetic.

People already look at me like I’m crazy. It’s the Humvees I’ve stockpiled. The LAVs. They don’t get it. But if I can get the Power back on, they will. Oh, they’ll rewrite their memories to claim they never doubted me. Maybe even _he_ will.

I need to relieve the pressure excruciatingly clenching my balls, but instead of conjuring up one of the thousands of times we made love, I imagine us in Iraq, lying side by side on a berm. I’m taking this shot, our legs locked together for stability. His thighs feel powerful yet relaxed against mine. His breathing is even, his heartbeat slowed as if he were about to drift off to sleep. He infuses me with perfect calm as the desert breeze trips across my bare hands.

Every sniper team has their own language, and when Miles is shooting he likes near silence. But when I’m manning the rifle, Miles gives me what _I_ need.

After our rituals and calculations, Miles whispers, “You’ve got this, brother. Hit it.”

I do. A spray of crimson explodes from the target’s head. “Kill,” Miles confirms and clamps a hand on my back. He even lets it linger, proud of me. “Good shooting.” I’m elated at the compliment.

I spasm into my fist, bucking against the mattress. Wet, slippery come spreads over my fingers and seeps into his sheets. I roll over to stare at the high ceiling, tears abruptly subsided, already drying on my cheeks.

How could he give up a symbiosis like that? We never missed. We were perfect.


	11. Disarm

 

**SWIM**   
**Rated: M**   
**Spoilers: 1.20**

_Bass_

It’s like being in a giant washing machine, the horizon savagely flip-flopping. I have to will myself not to succumb to the vertigo. But somehow I manage to pull myself out of the cascading falls with broad strokes, my boots and water-logged uniform sinking me like an anchor. Coughing, I reach out frantically for Miles’ big body and by some miracle lay hands on it. He feels like a fucking dummy. It’s then I realize he’s hit his head and is out cold. I tuck him under an arm and side-swim us to shore, grateful for the water’s buoyancy. Miles is no lightweight. I remember just how solid he is when I drag him the last few feet out of the water. Thank God for all those PT miles we swam in the Corps. I’m gasping but fine. Only then does the irony hit me: Without hesitation, I just saved the man I’ve been trying to kill for the past six months.

Miles sputters to consciousness just as I’m reviewing the bullet points of my BLS training. His pale skin cuts a striking contrast to dark hair, silvery around the temples; it’s distracting. I could finish him off now before he really has a chance to come to. It’s what I wanted, wasn’t it, when I tried to burn our hometown to ashes, when I sent Alec to Atlanta with a nuclear bomb because I knew Miles would follow?

No, I realize with a cold, sick twinge. I never believed I’d actually kill Miles. After all these years and everything we’ve been through, I still think him invincible. I was only punishing him.

Slowly the rich-brown eyes I used to hold my breath to see in the morning open and take me in, widening in surprise that I’ve saved him. Before he can register my weakness, I sock him in the face, the satisfying bone-crunch of knuckles to jaw. Then flinging my body on his, we roll like kids in a sandbox, except this really hurts. He’s punching my kidneys and trying to jam his knife-point knee into my balls, both of us fighting dirty. But he’s still woozy, probably concussed, so I successfully pin him.

He swats at me feebly, and I taunt with real venom, “You fight like a pussy.”

Driving my knee into his sternum I realize why I’m exacting a sadistic pleasure from insulting his manhood. All these years he acted like our relationship emasculated us. And that fucking stung. I dig harder into his flesh, and his cheeks turn sunset pink. I’m genuinely injuring him, and I find I can’t continue. (Who’s the pussy now?) I shift to straddle and choke him without real commitment, but my fingers on his windpipe only make him more desperate between my clamped thighs. Somehow we end up with our wet clothes plastered together, crotch to crotch, my sneer hovering inches from his lips… their perfect pointed peaks.

With a jolt I realize his cock is live beneath the wool and denim between us... and mine is too. Goddamn him. He’s my fucking drug habit I’ll never be able to quit. All my rage swirls into a pool of desire in my loins, and I grind into him, relishing the pulse of his very real erection. Before I can stop myself I’ve shoved my lips against his, cold and wet, kissing so stupidly I clench my eyelids together. This man is my sworn enemy. My fingers slide away from his fragile Adam’s apple to his unshaven chin, and I lick in, our tongues rough and hot on one another.

My idiocy soars to new heights, but I try wildly to justify it: I’m going to make Miles give into his own obvious desire. I’ll fuck him into submission. I think for a moment it’s actually going to work. He yanks my sopping curls into one fist like he’s going to intensify our kiss, but instead he bites down on my lip with a sharp pain and a sudden gush of metallic.

“Ow, fuck!” I protest wiping my thumb across my lip, just as he flips me to one side and clobbers me with angry fists.

Things devolve from there. A hailstorm of bullets from my own men and several fist fights later I actually get Miles to give something of an answer to why he abandoned me. It’s worse than any reason I’ve imagined - utterly nonsensical. Executing the bomber’s family? I’m nearly hysterical trying to explain, _I did that for you!_

Then reality creeps over me, slow and icy like a glacier. I doubt I could put this fresh betrayal to words, and the whipping violence of the helicopter overhead would prevent him from hearing it anyway. We learned to be warriors together - two halves of the same brain. In fact, there was a time before Miles had to be CASEVACed from Afghanistan that I believed I could not kill without my best friend at my side. But now I see that at some point along the way we diverged. I’m not sure why or how.

We run in opposite directions to escape the machine-gun fire.


	12. Silhouettes

 

**FUCK**   
**Rated: E**   
**Warning: rough sex**   
**Spoilers: 2.06**

_Miles_

I should be helping Bass to frame the Patriots for John Fry’s death, but I’m staring at his bent-over ass instead. I want to kill him. I want to put my hands around his pencil neck and squeeze. I could do it. He wouldn’t see it coming. When I stride over to him I almost think I’m gonna. For the second time in one evening, I shove him into the wall with a crunch.

He’s angrier this time, no stuffed toy to my terrier teeth; he fights back. He’s going to make me pay. But I’ve managed to crowd him against the wall so that the swing he takes at my head craned backward only grazes me. It still nearly knocks me sideways, the powerful son-of-a-bitch. Then it dawns on me: I don’t want to strangle Bass. I want to plough him.

I wrench his pants and shorts down as he goes in for a second blow. Before he makes contact I’ve ducked, dropping to my knees in front of his exposed ass, enticing as ever. I bury my face in it ravenously and realize only when my lips contact his pucker that if all the Texas Rangers poured in on us right now, I’d hose ‘em with my rifle just to finish what I’ve started here. The sky is falling and I don’t give a fuck about anything but Bass’ perfect, perky ass.

He pounds a fist into the wooden planks as I eat him out, smacking of dirt and sweat. This is what sex tastes like to me more than anything, more than even his come, though I crave that too. I know it sounds crazy. And truly, I must _be_ crazy.

Moaning and swearing at me (for good reason), Bass rolls his hips into my tongue. He wants it then. He jams his fingers into my hair from above and yanks. Fuck. I love that. I missed that. Pointedly I don’t reach around to grab his cock. And when I stand up to pull out my dick and slick it with spit, I smack away his groping hand. No touching, just fucking.

I line up for the finale of wild fucking and pound into his tight passage, my hands planted on the wall on either side of him. I spare him nothing, banging myself into blissful oblivion, only vaguely registering his whimpered _yeses_. Yeah, he wants me. He even breathes my name, and fuck me, it’s good.

I spill into him, as he recklessly jerks himself, spraying against the wall. His muscle contractions make me come so hard it aches. It almost certainly hurts him. I do feel guilty as I pull out. I feel even worse when Bass reaches back an elegant finger to wipe himself. Semen with a tinge of red.

I can’t handle what I’ve done here. I’m backing out the door when he stops me with his voice. It’s steadier than I would have thought. It’s his combat voice.

“I’m fine. You’re an asshole, but I’m fine. Next time ask first. And use more spit. You’ve lost your touch.”

Christ, I wish he hadn’t come here. I hope you’re happy, Charlie. This sure as hell isn’t what you envisioned when you brought home my ghost.


	13. Manner of Speaking

 

**GLOW**  
 **Rated: E**  
 **Spoilers: 2.22**

_Miles_

Poised before the dirty flaps of his tent I realize I can’t knock. _Our knock._ I’ll have to call his name or barge right in, and though barging would have been perfectly normal at one point for us, it just doesn’t feel, I don’t know… respectful after what he did for me today. Well damn, I can make out the shadow of his curls from the glow of the candle inside. My chest constricts in a way I don’t want to admit.

“I can hear you breathing out there, Miles. Just come in. Before it gets awkward.” The scratchy, familiar voice.

I have to swallow a lump in my throat as I part the worn canvas. I don’t want to examine where that came from: nerves or desire? Fuck, if it’s really _that_ then I shouldn’t go in. Why am I here?

Beside a single lit taper Bass is reclined on his cot, fingers laced under his head, his clear, blue eyes marking my advance. He’s not dressed - thin cotton shorts stretched over his hips - but, well, it’s the middle of the night. I’m lucky he’s still up at all.

Before I have the chance to make this really uncomfortable, my eyes straining to avoid wandering all over the flickering-gold muscles, my brain conjuring excuses for why I can’t tell him _thank you_ , I see the familiar shadow in his eyes. Then nothing matters except going to him. Gruffly I shove his legs out of the way to plunk on the edge of his cot, near enough to feel the heat pouring off his body.

“Connor?” I ask, and he just shrugs, shifting up on an elbow to face me. Even I don’t know exactly what I meant by the question. _Did you go looking for him this evening? Do you miss him? Do you regret choosing me?_

Bass’ eyes have fallen to his fingers, as he plays with a bit of skin on his thumb. I have to resist the urge to reach out for his hand. I can’t explain this, but I feel Bass’ agony with him. He’s had so much of it. And when it comes to Connor, in so many ways, I caused his pain.

“Bass, you did the right-” I choke on the word and almost laugh. I don’t even bother to finish my sentence because of the half-glare Bass is giving me. Now I shrug. “Yeah, guess neither of us are experts on _right_. Fuck. Move over.” I yank off my boots and fling them haphazardly by the laces into the corner.

We haven’t lain like this in years; we used to all the time in the early Republic years. It feels so normal and yet so intimate, close as we are on the twin cot, that I find I can’t look at him. Bass smells like grass and dirt and _him_. And… I want him. This is an old pattern I’ve initiated here - coming to him in the dead of night, climbing into his bed. What did I think would come next?

Bass probably feels my breath hitch, as I spend forever contemplating his arm pinned between our flanks and how badly I want to take his hand.

Bass clears his throat, but his voice still sounds so hoarse: “You came for that?” Like he can’t believe that my heartbeat thundering next to him and my labored breathing and the obvious bulge in my pants (the goddamn traitor) is all for him.

But get a load of what I answer: “No.” And he looks heartbroken, crushed. How can I be such an ass?

I feel him pulling away and grab him with both arms, drawing him to my chest. His eyes are squeezed shut, blonde eyelashes pinched away from view. I tilt up his chin with my hand. “I didn’t… I meant…”

Well, if I came here to thank him he gives me something else to be grateful for and that is: he stops me with his lips on mine. Doesn’t make me flounder, stupidly. He just kisses me, and it feels so warm and ancient. Like we never really stopped.

Kissing Bass is lying on the banks of the river where we used to play as kids when it was dusk and the lightning bugs began to shimmer. We knew our families would be calling us home for dinner, but we didn’t want to part. A few hours later we’d shine flashlight signals across the street from our bedrooms, because we already missed each other.

The dirty crescents of my fingernails disappear into his curls, as I pull him in deeper, my tongue sliding against his, tasting that familiar spice and leather. Meanwhile his calloused fingers migrate under my shirt and graze my ribs, cautiously avoiding the healing wound on my belly. When I shift onto my back, pulling his weight on top of me, he sighs a little, whether it’s from the memory of us as teenagers doing exactly this in his or my twin bed, or simply the contact of his nearly exposed hard-on with the jagged zipper of my fly. Either way, there’s only so much of my desperate grinding he can take. He rolls aside to start undressing me.

I take over for him, crossing my arms to yank my t-shirt over my head and kicking out of my pants and shorts. By the time I’ve writhed free of my clothes I’ve missed him discarding his own boxers, missed the spring of his perfect cock from its confines, and I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. I suddenly can’t stand the thought of this being our only time together.

Goddamn, his cock is beautiful in the candle glow. I lick my hand and grab eagerly for it. Bass chuckle-whimpers before craning forward for my lips again. The silk and hardness, the familiar weight. With each knead of my fingers it throbs like it missed me too. When Bass threads his strong arms through mine to touch me back, I suck in too much air from Bass’ mouth, and he retracts his lips with a smile. We lie on our sides for long minutes, just feeling each other up, the gentle _slip, slip_ of our cocks in spit-slicked fingers the only sound in the night.

A shift toward urgency convinces me to ask, “Turn over?” and he does, his gorgeous, golden ass laid out before me, suddenly mine for the taking. I kiss the sunburnt skin of his neck before kneeling between his parted thighs. At first I just rest my cheek against the smooth arc of skin, relishing him.

The first time we did this we were Marines on a day pass on the South Carolina sea coast. I don’t know if we waited longer for it because we were nervous about the taboo or the discomfort or what, but when we finally did it I think we were both surprised by how right it felt. How perfect. Everything about Bass is perfect to me - the way he tastes and feels clenched on my fingers. I’m tasting him now, drinking in his pillow-muffled moans. I’m opening him carefully, lovingly as I’ve done hundreds of times before, tongue-first and then two fingers beckoning inward.

I sound really ragged when I whisper his name to see if he’s ready. Instead of nodding he reaches desperately behind for my free hand and winds his fingers in mine. I guide myself into him little by little until I’m completely buried in tight, hot slickness. I hear myself moan and wonder if everyone else in our camp has heard it too.

But fuck them. This is only for us.

Bass and I manage to get our interlaced hands wedged under his pelvis so he can fuck against them. It’s probably too much friction for him, but he bites his lip and bears it, grinding hard. I feel like I’m losing my mind behind him or at least my self-control. Little bursts of rainbow behind my clamped eyelids and the dull ticking in my balls warn me I’m close. I’ve barely had the thought before I’m seizing, pulsing into him, and that sets him off too. Warm seed spills over our sweaty, tangled fingers and the velvety cock clasped between them, as the sounds we make when we come, so familiar to each other after all these years, crowd out the silence.

By the time we disentangle, we’re panting with exhaustion, emotion. Bass burrows into my arms and reminds me how small he sometimes feels despite his muscular frame. It’s like I could wrap my arms around him twice. I suppose he’s gotten really skinny this year throughout his ordeal. It’s time I admit it: I’ve put him through a fucking ordeal. Heaving a great sigh against his curls, I let our skin mend each other.

Because our whole lives, I’ve never known what to say. I’m only good at this.


End file.
